1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recycled product distribution support apparatus and program, and particularly relates to a recycled product distribution support system and program for supporting efficient product recycling.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, products made by manufacturers have in many cases been disposed when the life of the products is completed by their users. However, people become more and more concerned about environmental problems recently, and companies including manufacturers feel the necessity of reducing environmental impacts given by the products having ended their life. Hence, product recycling is commonly done as a way to reduce environmental impacts.
Product recycling includes product reusing where a product is recovered to a reusable state and reused, and resource recovering where a product is changed into reusable resources component by component. In case of resource recovering, products have to be decomposed, classified, and transported to different resource recovery facilities for respective components, and environmental impacts are often produced in these processes. On the other hand, in case of product reusing, components are replaced to maintain the functions of the products, and then the products can be transported in an assembled state. Accordingly, product reusing is a recycling method less environmentally hazardous. Therefore, product recycling in the product reusing manner is effective in reducing the overall environmental impacts.
An information system for carrying out such efficient product recycling is proposed in, for example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 2003-16179. As described above, product reusing is a recycling method effective for reducing environmental impacts, and therefore demanded to be more widely spread. If product reusing is more widely spread, recycled products to be reused can have a market value as high as products newly manufactured. Therefore, likewise the distribution process of ordinary products, avoiding overstocking of recycled products and distributing recycled products at lower costs will lead the recycled products to have an increased market competitiveness. As a result, it can be expected that product reusing will be more promoted to contribute to the reduction of environmental impacts. Thus, it is demanded that a method capable of efficiently distributing recycled products be established.